Asmâa Hamzaoui & Bnat Timbouktou

6 euros if purchased online. Tickets sold on this website up to the day
of the event at 2:00 p.m., or until sold out. Those tickets which have
not been sold online will be put on sale one hour before the event at
the Casa Árabe Auditorium door (cash payment only) for the price of 7
euros (6 euros for the officially unemployed, Casa Árabe Language Center
students and Youth Card holders. You must demonstrate this status by
showing the proper document to receive the discount). Assigned seating
with tickets.

On our website, you can now purchase tickets to attend this concert,
which we have organized to take place on February 26 at our headquarters
in Madrid. The group is now on tour in our country to present its
latest album, “Oulad Ighlaba.”

Asmâa Hamzaoui was born in Casablanca. She is 22 years old, and those in the know say she is the first woman to become a professional player of the guembri, an African ancestor of the bass, and an emblematic instrument in North African folklore. These instruments are so important and sacred in gnawa music that each maâlem (or master) hands down his honorary title by bestowing his guembri to a disciple, who is then considered to be the new master. This is the other part of the story which has made Asmâa a maâlema: her father, Mâalem Rachid Hamzaoui, took her to perform with him at a festival when she was just 12 years old, and after that first concert, he decided to pass his own guembri on to her, and thus his title.

In Morocco, the gnawa are descendants of slaves of Sub-Saharan origin, who were deported to the Maghreb region. In the modern day, they are the heirs to an vibrant ritual and spiritual tradition that combines poetry, music and dance. Women traditionally do not perform during the ceremonies and only play the instrument in the private sphere. Going on stage in public is still considered to be taboo. Asmâa Hamzaoui is the exception. In the album “Oulad Lghaba,” the group has remained loyal to tradition in terms of style, but it has introduced its own selection of themes. Separation, suffering and the remembrance of Africa are the dominant subjects.

Casa Árabe’s concert forms part of the tour that is taking these women to many different cities in Spain to present their album “Oulad Ighaba.”